High court blocks states’ climate change lawsuit

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court unanimously ruled out a federal lawsuit Monday by states and conservation groups trying to force cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

The court said that the authority to seek reductions in emissions rests with the Environmental Protection Agency, not the courts.

EPA said in December that it will issue new regulations by next year to reduce power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas. The Obama administration has already started controlling heat-trapping pollution from automobiles and from some of the largest, and most polluting, industrial plants.

But the administration’s actions have come under criticism in Congress, where the Republican-controlled House has passed a bill to strip the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming gases. The measure failed in the Senate, but a majority there indicated they would back reining in EPA in some way.